In 2014, Joseph Fabics filed a verified complaint seeking guardianship of his mother. The court appointed Ann Renaud, Esq. to represent Mrs. Fabics in connection with the action.
The court-appointed attorney submitted a report to the court concluding that Joseph would be an unsuitable guardian, and recommending that Mrs. Fabics’s other son, Laszlo, be appointed as guardian. She noted Joseph’s behavior during the course of the litigation, which “to the educated lay person demonstrated mental illness.” The court-appointed attorney noted that Joseph made similar claims regarding his mother’s incapacity in 2006, and that Adult Protective Services (APS) had investigated and concluded that “the problem did not reside with [Mrs. Fabics], but rather with [Joseph].” APS concluded that Joseph was harassing and causing anxiety to Mrs. Fabics. In 2007, Mrs. Fabics executed a power of attorney naming her son Laszlo as her agent, and expressed a preference that Laszlo be appointed as her guardian. Following a hearing, the court appointed Laszlo as guardian, but ordered Laszlo to permit Joseph to visit their mother under various conditions.
Several weeks later, Joseph filed an emergent application claiming that the guardian, Laszlo, was preventing visitation. A hearing followed, at which time Lazlo testified that their mother was on hospice care and was only conscious approximately a half hour per day. The court-appointed attorney reported that Joseph had visited his mother on a number of occasions, and that he caused disturbances that were distressing to Mrs. Fabics. Following the hearing, the court ordered that Joseph be permitted to visit his mother one hour per day.
Mrs. Fabics died several days later. Thereafter, Joseph filed an appeal claiming that the court abused its discretion in limiting his right to visit with his gravely ill mother.
Although the Appellate Division found the visitation claim to be moot based on Mrs. Fabics’s death, it reviewed the record and concluded that there was no abuse of judicial discretion in the visitation restriction that the trial court had concluded to be in Mrs. Fabics’s best interest.
A copy of In the Matter of Anna Fabics can be found here – In the Matter of Anna Fabics
For additional information concerning guardianships and fiduciary services, visit: https://vanarellilaw.com/guardianship-fiduciary-services/
Categories
- Affordable Care Act
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Arbitration
- Attorney Ethics
- Attorneys Fees
- Beneficiary Designations
- Blog Roundup and Highlights
- Blogs and Blogging
- Care Facilities
- Caregivers
- Cemetery
- Collaborative Family Law
- Conservatorships
- Consumer Fraud
- Contempt
- Contracts
- Defamation
- Developmental Disabilities
- Discovery
- Discrimination Laws
- Doctrine of Probable Intent
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- Elder Law
- Elective Share
- End-of-Life Decisions
- Estate Administration
- Estate Litigation
- Estate Planning
- Events
- Family Law
- Fiduciary
- Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
- Funeral
- Future of the Legal Profession
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Governmental or Public Benefit Programs
- Guardianship
- Health Issues
- Housing for the Elderly and Disabled
- In Remembrance
- Insolvent Estates
- Institutional Liens
- Insurance
- Interesting New Cases
- Intestacy
- Law Firm News
- Law Firm Videos
- Law Practice Management / Development
- Lawyers and Lawyering
- Legal Capacity or Competancy
- Legal Malpractice
- Legal Rights of the Disabled
- Liens
- Litigation
- Mediation
- Medicaid Appeals
- Medicaid Applications
- Medicaid Planning
- Annuities
- Care Contracts
- Divorce
- Estate Recovery
- Family Part Non-Dissolution Support Orders
- Gifts
- Life Estates
- Loan repayments
- MMMNA
- Promissory Notes
- Qualified Income Trusts
- Spousal Refusal
- Transfers For Reasons Other Than To Qualify For Medicaid
- Transfers to "Caregiver" Child(ren)
- Transfers to Disabled Adult Children
- Trusts
- Undue Hardship Provision
- Multiple-Party Deposit Account Act
- New Cases
- New Laws
- News Briefs
- Newsletters
- Non-Probate Assets
- Nursing Facility Litigation
- Personal Achievements and Awards
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
- Probate
- Punitive Damages
- Reconsideration
- Retirement Benefits
- Reverse Mortgages
- Section 8 Housing
- Settlement of Litigation
- Social Media
- Special Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Surrogate Decision-Making
- Taxation
- Technology
- Texting
- Top Ten
- Trials
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Veterans Benefits
- Web Sites and the Internet
- Webinar
- Writing Intended To Be A Will
Vanarelli & Li, LLC on Social Media